The antenna design for broadband satellite communications is particularly challenging, new cost-effective
solutions are still needed. An overview of recent contributions
from the authors on planar transmit-arrays (TAs) for satellite Kaband user terminals is presented. We tackle several design problems: how to improve the scanning coverage using low cost mechanical beam steering, how to choose the type of unit cells that compose the TA, how to devise a single aperture with high gain that operates simultaneous at two widely separate frequency
bands. Different prototypes are used to conduct these studies. All
these TAs provide wide beam zenith scanning, [-50º,50º] with less that 3dB of scan loss, good circular polarization performance and low beam distortions. The prototypes have the same aperture size, 195 × 145 mm2, that provide gains up to 29 dBi for 30 GHz.